QLS Classic: Seth Rogen

Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Hey what's up, y'all? You know I love the QLs episodes with comedians, and right before the pandemic, we had Seth Rogan on. We Laugh, We talked Hollywood shop, we talk hip hop, stand up, listen back as Laiah Sugar, Steve Boss Bill, and I spoke with Seth, who was so fun to hang out with and listen to this and let us know some of the comedians you would like on the show. All right, wait what.

Stop?

Stop stop stop stop stop the thing, keep it going, stop the thing. Wait. You said that if you sit next to Seth Rogan, you're gonna be rich on the first of January.

Yes, if I start the year sitting next.

To Seventh Smith, yes, I'm gonna be rich and funny. Okay, here we go.

Suprema something something, Supremo, roll car Suprema some Supremo, roll car, Suprema something Supreme, roll call, Suprema, Son, Supremo, Roll Quest Love.

Here thinking, yeah, which is which? Yeah, maybe I need to switch my seat. Yeah, so I too can get rich car Supreme.

I'm just saying Supremo, roll Call, Suprema something something, Supremo.

Roll Car is Sugar. Yeah, Yeah, I'm a mess. Yeah, I've been smoking way too much Pineapple.

Express, Supreme Something Supreme roll Car, Suprema s Suprema roll Car.

This is boss Bill. Yeah, back again my friends. Yeah, this is the third line. Yeah, and this is the end car.

Suprema Something something so Prima roll call Suprema su Supremo roll call.

Yeah with Seth of course. Yeah, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, this will better than a horse.

So you went to a dark place.

Supreme Supremo roll Call.

My name is Seth. Yeah, I'm feeling old, yeah handed New York. Yeah, I'm fucking cold.

Roll Supreme U Suck Suck Supprima roll Call, Supreme Suck Suck Supprimo roll Call Supreme Supreme roll Supremium.

This is how we're going to start.

We're going to twenty twenty. This is a bad omen all right.

The god song to it that we should have no more theme. Get to it, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, this is the newly rich neuvau Reese Quest Love another episode, Happy New Year. This is January first, twenty twenty. Everybody, how do you feel good?

Old and cold?

How is your How was your holiday? Your festivities? It was old and cold.

No, we had a great time, of course, okay.

Great, we can't remember.

Did the checks come through?

Yeah, the honk checks clear it Solf as well.

I'm actually shocked because whenever any of your brothers come on the show, your your you always your roll call is usually geared towards you do jewy call.

Yeah, yeah, I started incorporating the jewy part, but just left it with the stone apart Ston.

I think. Yeah, I'm about to say, I think.

Are pretty like there's a lot of overlaps.

Paid Bill would not approve anyway. I'm your host Questlove, joined to day by my croonies, Boss Bill, Sugar, Steve unpaid, pilled. Surprisingly isn't here? Yeah here wit? Is he not coming? Or did we call him? Do we let him know? Let him?

You know he does play sesame streets and stuff.

Okay, so he's can chill the muppets enough bagel jokes.

We can make out anyway.

Uh, not to stall anymore, Ladies and gentlemen, we have comedian, director, producer, actor, writer, leading man cannabis connoisseur. I also uh advocate for sleeping in the bedroom under sixty seven degrees.

Yes, it's true.

We will we will get that later.

I guess. Uh Philadelphia music culture fan voice him in the roots. Uh ladies and gentlemen, and and hip hop head and Canadian ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the show. Seth Rogan. Wait, I gotta all right, we this is this is a show of rabbit holing. Let's just start getting first, all right, I'm a little I'm miffed. All right, so I have to explain that.

A lot of backstories.

I was very fortunate. I was very fortunate to attend uh sets uh Hilarity for charity event. Shout out to uh Mnisian and Mary Ellis Museum.

Yeah.

Yeah, So I went there and the discussion of how much sleep does a person need to have a healthy brain? Yes, yes, No, I learned a lot. I learned that. As of lately, I'll say the last two months, I've been back into the eight hour range of sleeping because right because people were always like, when do you sleep? When do you see to sleep? I was three, I was three to five hour guy, and I was told that you don't even reach r em state until six hours and forty seven minutes and for your body to heal. And you know, I'm adjusting my lifestyle right now. I'm trying to get back to a healthier place. I gotta do somewhere between eight to ten hours for the magic to begin. So, but then you guys left me with this, this gem

of the room has to be cold.

Yeah, you sleep best if the room is freezing. I've heard that before, like sixty in the sixties.

Well, yeah, my girlfriend took that to heart and now every night.

Yeah, it's cold as hell.

It's been sixty five degrees in the bedroom.

Are you sleeping better?

No, blanket?

No, I'm sleeping well. But it's not like I needed to be Africa hot.

My wife.

Well, that's why my wife likes it much colder than me. And that's why they have heating pad. That's what we're talking about. There's there's paths from actress where you can set the temperature so you could keep your side hot and side cold.

And it's something that throughout the DLT.

Yeah perfect, I'm sorry, it's exactly right, but uh no, it's fun. And I think I think as men get older, they get colder. It is we would get older, they get hotter. Yeah, yeah, me and my wife have kind of We were just talking about how we like crossed over. Like when we first started dating, I was always hot and she was always cold, and now I'm always cold and she's always hot. And we probably had like three years where we were both the same temperature and we didn't realize how good that time was until it was gone.

No, it could be really probably problematic because I'll get up, I'll reach my limit at exactly like four to seventeen am.

And you're freezing.

Are you sure I'll sneak up? Isn't that?

Remember it?

All right? You remember Sesame Street, the green guy in the in the in the trench coat that used to always sell ernie like a letter hey.

But yeah, yeah exactly, letter dealer, right, So like his little creep music, creeping tiptoe music.

Yes, exactly. So I'm in my own house that I pay for creeping putting that ship back to like something normal like sixty eight.

Yeah, I don't go below sixty eight ars. So that's where we've landed. My wife Lauren would go to this like low sixties over thirty five.

You gotta go to sixty six bra for a woman, because you.

Got us put on another blanket and then make it hot underneath it. You know what I'm saying, that's the goal.

Think about it.

What's the what's the logic behind keeping it colder? What's the physics of And.

Then the thing is that your your brain is divided into two parts. There's the conscious brain and like the concert beans like hey, uh, I'm gonna go to work, I'm gonna go to work later today, I'm gonna take the subway home, I'm gonna lose weight, I'm going to ask that girl out. And then it's a subconscious which does stuff like I'm gonna make sure your heart's beating, I'm gonna make sure you're waste. So it's the it's the part of your brain whoa yeah, what do you say?

And so it's actually a fish song of course, And so.

Your body has to be totally knocked out. So you get to that ram state at exactly six hours and forty five minutes. When you're that sleep, then your right side of the brain's like waking up.

Like all right, he's asleep, let's get to work.

And so then that's where the fat burns. That's where like all the things that you want to help have happened for your life to be good. Your your brain's like all right, they're knocked out. Now now we can get to work. But the thing is that most of us don't get that much sleep, so we're doing ourselves a disservice by only sleeping six to seven hours.

It's terrible for you.

Yeah, you didn't answer my questions. Why does it have to be cold?

Probably because people it probably because it was cold at night.

You're you mean like before we had houses.

Yeah, Like, it's probably like we're conditioned to sleep in colder environments, so.

I think so. So at this event, Okay, can we disagree that this entire hour is going to be about this. I'm kind of when you're side of the fence. Why does it have to be so damn cold? No?

I mean, I'm just asking, no, no, no, I'm asking.

I'm what's the scientific part of I don't think coldness helps.

I don't know.

That's where I want to know.

Google, where we changed the subject.

I'm just going to suggest everybody hop on Google.

Yeah, Google, and then we can continue. Anyway, let's talk about movies.

Where are you?

But you do sleep better?

What it's cold? And that's the.

Uh, we don't need wise, are we giving wise? We're just giving answers here. It's been said completely unsubstantiated information scientists.

Scientists have gone on record and said.

We had a doctor he substantiated it.

Yeah, I believe me and my curiosity.

So you were born in Vancouver, Vancouver, British Columbia. Uh huh, home home of the the hip hop national anthem.

Wait who else was Alia Chang?

Because he's yeah.

This episode has manager. Yeah, you know so, I think I've met her over the years.

Actually she'll be on the future episodes anyway. Yeah, I know.

The Rascals are a hip hop group from Vancouver.

That were the Rascals, the Rascals they were called like uh and uh Northern Touch, Yeah, Rascals, checkmate, Cardinal Allen thrust Claire, how do you know this? How do you know that? Very no American knows that song?

I do my research.

Well, maybe you can help you straight to steal the beat of that song for a song.

Yeah, there is a d MX song with.

The exact same beat as Northern Touch, And I think if you're Canadian it's very jarring.

But if you're like, oh, this is a good beat.

Still I can't yeh express bt express ample that E P m D used head banger ev Well no, no, no for uh uh you know what I'm saying. Northern Touch first, get the bows that No, E B M D was first, and then Northern Touch yes maybe, and then DMX came and just took it.

Did you did you?

Did you know that your your hometown is also uh what what? I consider that the national anthem of hip hop? Did you know that Apache was created in Vancouver?

Apache?

Yes? Apache was recorded and created in Vancouver.

Really?

Yes, I did not know that. Yes, that's one of my favorite factoids.

About that is a very good fact with Vancouver and the other and Nard Wars from Vancouver is the other.

I love Artwar.

Yeah, your interviews with him are great. Have you interviewed been I've been interviewed by him once.

Have you ever seen a non savory NRD war interview like a lot of the earlier ones where they don't you know if he's trolling them or not?

Oh?

Yes, So, I mean I grew up watching him, So I've seen like so many.

How long has he been doing this?

Like thirty years? He's like fifty something. Yes, he's younger than me.

No, there's actually an amazing yard War interview with Nirvana, like backstage at the P and E Forum, which is the place in Vancouver from like nineteen ninety, like three or something like Courtney Love is there and it's like a very long interview that's filmed and throughout it's like forty minutes or something like. Throughout the course of it, you see Kurt Kobad like slowly realize he's a genius, and like, at first it's this thing where it's just like, why is this fucking guy here bothering me? And then he slowly like clues in the house. Yeah, he totally does know. But I've seen because now people know who he is. Like, but for years I would watch interviews where famous musicians would just get interviewed by him and

be like, who the fuck is this guy? And even still some people don't I feel like, don't get it. I feel like people all right, So that jay Z interviews jay Z didn't seem to appreciate.

No.

I warned him about it. I begged him to do it, and then Forrell doubled down. Yeah, so he did it. Because if we say it's a thing then jay Z is just one of them, fomo. I don't want to miss out.

He's got no question.

Anyway. And so but I'll say that the first time he interviewed me, I was paranoid because he just knew way.

Oh it's weird.

Too much information he.

Knew about me. That was he brought out your books. Yeah, he had my high school yearbooks. Literally, he like knew people. He knew names that I hadn't heard in like, yeah, twenty five years.

Back from the shop at your mommy store.

Yes, literally that. Yeah, it's totally crazy.

It would freak me out.

It was super fucking freaky. But his knowledge is bizarre. He's always trying to get to Kanye. He's like that's his holy grail. He like emails me and.

Tells me are YouTube? Oh not at all? Yes, I can see that going very bad.

He somehow thinks that I have the magic touch to get him to the Obamas.

Wow, I would be for Kanye. So yeah, that's a big step in a much better direction.

I read somewhere somebody said online that, uh that when you get to the purlegates of Heaven, it's nard war that Yeah, he's the one that reviewing your entire life there.

So, speaking of your hometown, are you is every time I ask anybody from Vancouver, are you knowledgeable the La Cassa gelato or is that just for tour suckers like me? It's the place that.

Has like hundreds of flavors of Gilado. Yeah, it's near. It's on like the like north end of kind of the east side of Vancouver.

It's my favorite place. Ever, I might.

It's not somewhere I grew up going, but it's somewhere that I've heard of it.

I think it might be kind of a you know, it's like mc vinegar.

Yeah, it was one of the first places to start doing like weird flavors or ship like that.

Yeah. They basically just cheese ice cream, man.

Like a tobacco one or something like that.

Yeah, for a while.

Yeah, Well, I mean.

Something that some of the weird ones I liked, Like they have black pepper vanilla.

That's weird. How is cheddar cheese?

Well that's the thing. You you basically you sample all the weird ones and you get the rocky road.

That's you know, that's a purely like North American thing is sampling ice cream.

Like, uh, what I was considered rude. Well, I was in Italy and uh not to brag.

That was in Italy in a gelato shop and there was like a rush of Americans left and me and my wife for the holy people at the restaurant, and the woman behind the counter like very quietly looked at us.

And goes, can I ask you a question? We're like, yeah, how come American always ask the taste? And she's like, what is this? Like nowhere else you asked to taste them?

And I was like, you're right when you put it like that, it is pretty fucking weird, Like nowhere else you'd be like.

Can I try that sandwich? Piece of.

Ros?

That's what I said.

I said, I think it all roots back to this one place, basket Robbins, where they encourage people to do it and that ruined really ice cream all over the Yeah there that the sun.

They I'm like, yeah, they combined with Duncan donuts.

No, No, that's the thing. I know that the Sun inherited the empire, and because you know, like generations are the opposite of what their parents were, the Sun wasn't like, you know, he didn't he was concerned about the cows. They were using and wanted free range, and so instead he took the family money and did this expose on how like ice cream companies are ruining cows or environment and all those things.

It's like ice cream succession.

So they that's crazy basket around.

I was just saying the ice cream industry.

Which explains why they had to partner.

With that Margarita flavor. Still there is good Margarite ice cream have a Margarita flavor.

They've had it forever.

My good to condition children at a young age to develop a taste from Margarita's.

So twenty minutes. So twenty minutes into this interview, let's start. So you being born in the early eighties in Vancouver, what was the what was your environment like in your household?

My household, I lived on the East Side of Vancouver, which in like a one hundred percent like East Indian neighborhood, So it was it was great. It was like I would walk around a lot. I was just arguing with my parents. Their memory was that I never walked around alone, and I definitively did all the time. It would take the bus all around the city. But uh yeah, but I went to school on the West side.

I grew up.

I started doing stand up when I was young, like twelve or thirteen, and I would started writing around then too.

And I smoked weed a lot. Not much has changed my life since I was twelve.

I ag So the myth, the myth of super Bad and you crafting this at such a young age is one.

Yes, for sure. Yeah.

Me and my partner Evan, who I still work with, met in bar Mitzvah class when we were twelve and then started writing together not long after that, and we had Yeah, we probably finished the draft to super Bad when we were like fourteen or fifteen from the complete yeah by then, but we started we were like thirteen, And there is some and it's like it's one of those things where it's almost sad that, like, I'm not that much smarter or fuddier that I was when I was thirteen years old, because there are some jokes in the movie that like we wrote when we were thirteen that are still in the movie, that are in the movie that like that held up and that are still Yeah, you'd like to think you got better in that amount

of time at fourteen.

Yes, look like a professional, I'm.

Trying to say, I I asked my mom to buy me Final Draft, which was the script writing software, and she did. My parents were like super supportive because I also didn't stand up, so they saw that like I would work hard, you know what I mean?

This is ninety six.

Yeah, this is probably ninety five or ninety six or something like that. Yeah, ninety five, I would say ninety six.

Yeah, Like all right, I'm curious. And this is leads back to the conscious subconscious. When you're subconscious, it's convinced of something, then your body does it, which which explains why you know, Kanye uses outward affirmations I am the greatest, yes, and then everything happens for him, the same way with Trump, the same way with Diddy, the same with with Jay.

Remember Day remix it and called it a secret six million.

Dollars account six million do secret?

I have.

Six million dollars in my make account.

Right now, right now.

So I'm curious what what inside you gave you the the balls to even be like, yo, let's write a movie now, Like it didn't even start with like, let's start with community theater.

Yeah, hey, how do you do this?

Or did you see a movie? One day? Is like I could do literally that's what happened? Like what movie did you see that sets you off?

I can't remember, and we are all we loved fiction. That was like no, like that was something. I had a pulp fiction poster on my bedroom door, like throughout.

If you were a teenager in the nineties, you had.

Yeah, I mean that came out in ninety four, maybe I was twelve, so we saw it around then, and it was it was also the era of like independent It was like the resurgence of this independent film like Clarks came out and Rushmore and Wes Anderson had Bottle Rocket, so there was saw this film. Oh yeah, we were obsessed with them. And it's also one of those things that was my parents loved movies and they were just huge movie fans, so they would like watch a lot of movies and collect movies.

Vancouver. They made some stuff.

There, so it's not like Hollywood, but like you would see movie sets around and so there was like it wasn't this like completely unobtainable thing.

And then in.

High school, our high school was right across the street from to video store like giant video stores, and we would rent movies, like we watched.

All we would do is like smoke.

We'd watch movies basically, and when you watch enough movies you start to think, maybe we could do this, and if we write something that's like cheap, then maybe that was always the thought was like it was said in high school, super Bad, and we were like, where it comes to worst, like this becomes something we like we made movies with like our like you know, we had a video camera. We were like, we could technically make this ourselves if we wanted to.

You know, what was your north star in terms of Okay? So now it's just hitting me that because I have family that worked at an independent movie theater, yeah, back in ninety one ninety two, so I always have free tickets. But you know, we're seeing al Rachi, We're seeing like all these indie films, which I mean the time, I didn't realize it, but it was grooming me to gear towards art house stuff as opposed to mainstream stuff. But for you, what were your Were you a film snob or were you just like I got Poor GI's and Hot Dog?

Yeah, no, the Ski Movie, yeah, of course.

I liked Hamburger the motion pictures, Yeah, Hamburger, Hamburger.

Was there a Hamburger movie.

Yes, I gotta see it.

It was amazing on TV.

There's a specific like C movie VHS section, anything that was on HBO late night, and like in we.

Would just rent movies based on what the cover of the box looking garbage.

Anybody can find the garbage.

It's funny, Busy do might movie just came out. I watched, But we were we were obsessed with Dolemite because like it was one of those reason that like purely based on the we're like what is this?

We did the same We did the same thing, like every Friday night, we would all meet up at this Mexican restaurant in town and then we would all like caravan over to the video store, argue for about half an hour about what video we're going to pick out.

Oh, we would argue for hours.

We spend more time in the video store than we would watching the movies we rented at the video Like that was the activity was going to the video store inside we argue over.

What we did.

We called it a tasteless movie night. We would try to find the most tasteless movie we could find in the video stoffect Yeah, and we would just go to my friend Darren's basement and watch it and just like it was commentary, it was perfect commentary involved. I'm sure if there had been. Well his mom was a teachers that.

Would never So what were your go to films?

Well, I think it's like one thing I look at is like the movies.

It's obviously something I've thought about, you know, is like the movies my parents owned, Like they owned like forty movies on like vhs that they would like there was like three movies to a VHS.

They would tape them off TV yes when they came on and like.

Would you ever watch them?

I did all the time.

And those movies are like cementing in my brain. I know, reward to every one of me. And I also bet that if I like made a list of all those movies they like directly correlate to the movies that I've made since then basically like well, it's like Ghostbusters, they and movies like that.

My dad loved Bill Murray.

They also loved like Woody Allen and like Independent like they like they had like Hannah and Her Sisters and like any halland movies like that. And I would watch those movies a lot. And then they had like Albert Brooks movies, and my dad loved Billy Crystal and so like it was a lot of that stuff. And my mom though, loved action movies, and so we had like Die Hard and Total Recall and like Under Siege, I remember we had right when it came out, and Lethal Weapon was like, it's like one of my mom's favorite movies.

And so I would watch these like emotionally driven kind of comedy drama movies and like the most violent, insane action movies. And that's kind of a lot of the stuff we make now, I see. Yeah, And so all those movies like we loved, and then when yeah, and then when Paul Fiction and those movies started to come out, we became cessam Reservoir Dogs we loved and like.

And then we got.

Really in a Sam Raimie and Peter Jackson's early movies like Army of Darkness we watched over and over and over again and Dead Alive we watched.

We watched a lot.

And like, uh yeah, and then to see those guys go on that was another thing. Is like you'd see like, oh, like Sam Raimi's Drict and Spider Man and like these guys who like we were already fans of for making like the weirdest shit ever were then crossing over and becoming really successful and I think making big things and that was also I think something we always liked and that was interesting to us. But no, I mean we just like devoured.

The Vancouver have much of a social or nightlife because I'm a I'm almost thinking of I'm thinking that Vancouver is almost like all right, what Minneapolis was to print, yeah, and how there was a scene there, but because there's not much to do. Yes, he had a lot of time to hone his craft.

Yes, to do music a lot, Yes, And the weather determines staying in Vancouver is a city where people sit, like go to someone's house and smoke weed.

That's like the activity your experience.

That is like what people do there, or and when it's nice out, you go to a not a nature place and smoke weed. It's like a very like weed was like super prevalent and like it's a huge It's like one of the most progressive cities in the world when it comes to weed.

Even in the nineties. So you've never been arrested for the right.

When I moved to La I got arrested because I didn't understand how much more strict it wash than it was in Vancouver. Like all throughout high school, if we got caught with weed, the cops wouldn't would just take it. They wouldn't even always take it. They would just be like go away, like like it was such dulow on priority, like on the priorities, because Vancouver had like a terrible, terrible heroin problem and it was like had a really rough drug problem, and so weed very early on became deprioritized and decriminalized. And from when I was a kid, there was a coffee shop you could go smoke weed in and there was like indoor like places you go inside and smoke.

We seth you never know, we would see I have.

But yeah, when I first moved to l A, we'd buy pounds of Mexican weed.

Wait virgin here was I mean, I mean lots of seeds and this is reggie.

So it's call it reggie regular weed.

But to me, if Vancouver has been in the hierarchy of the weed gang, I would just assume that like you're that.

Good like hydroponic.

You don't want to seeds, you know, it takes that's a sterile part to wait I don't know if that's true.

I don't know if there's size. That's what associated.

That's what I'm saying. Why is it taking three years for me to really wait? How are you just gonna let Laya come here and drink your milk?

Seeds?

Right, all of our parents spoke with seeds in them, and we stole them. We have to pick them out and it pops into birds of seats, seats, this leather.

Sure, it falls out of the joint.

Sometimes. My dad's a cull for it all the time. God, damn daddy, always looking in your car, look at them holes.

Sorry, I didn't know that you started standing up at a young age.

Fourteen? Yeah, thirteen or fourteen?

Okay, so the only person I know they had the experience with Chappelle.

How I think Eddie Murphy started around that age. Yeah, so very much better.

How do you how do you even negotiate your way into a club? Yeah?

My mom helped, She would talk to She drove me to every show, literally because I couldn't drive. And yeah, and what's funny is very early on it's one of those like happy coincidences. I did a show that I did a fundraiser when I was like fourteen, a small one that the premiere who's like the governor kind of a British Columbia, was at and my mother cornered him and was like, if my son's performing at a bar, can he be in the bar? And the guy was like, legally yes, And she caught his office to send a letter wow saying that as long as I was performing, it is legal for me to be in the premises and I and I would have to leave right after.

So like I would sit backstage and I would show it to the club. There was only four clubs anyway, but once they had all seen it, they would let me perform there and and then I performed like regularly, and I was like, I was like pretty good, Like I wasn't.

What was a check like at the age? Did you get a check?

Every once in a while, I would like open for a comic and I'd get like one hundred and fifty bucks or something like that, which when you're fucking but like fantastic.

You use your your kiddom, did you use your youth?

I tried not to. I tried to.

I would talk well at first, I didn't at all, and I because I was so self conscious about being like gimmicky that I would try.

To tell you fourteen, I know it like rocket adult.

I was very neurotic, and I didn't want to be like the kid comics, so I tried to write jokes that that any comic would write that were like more like observational humor, but.

It were I was always wanted to.

I didn't actually at first at all. Also, but then I remember this comic Daryl Lennox, who still does stand up and he's great.

He was like I was telling just.

Like like all the cogs would make fun of me because I had a joke about like crazy glue. What's so crazy about it? It was like this like observational tumor of all time. And then and then Darryl I remember, like sat me down and I was like fifteen, and he was like, dude, like you are the only one of us who is like experiencing all these things like in real time, Like you're trying to kiss girls for the first time, you're trying to get your driver's license, you're trying to buy beer, you're trying to go to parties, you're trying to sneak into strip clubs, like right, jokes about that, like that's something that like everyone's gone through in some way and you're living it like right now, and and I was like okay. And then that was

also one of the things that really influenced Super Bad, where at first it was more like, let's write a high school movie, and then we were like, no, let's write like whenever something happens to us, let's put it in the movie, and let's make us the characters in the movie, and let's like structure it around.

So those things happened to you guys in.

Super Bad, not all in one night, but almost a lot of the stuff in the movie happened, Yeah, like in some form or another, like and everything.

So you grind it up against the girl, and.

That happened at a school dance.

Yeah, that that that actually, And in real life, I was one of the guys. Like it played out almost verbatim as it did in the movie, except one of our friends was the Jodah character in real life, and I was one of the guys.

Who was like, what is that, Like, what's on your leg there? And that's what happened.

And so, yeah, it was a school dance and we all put our stuff in like the locker room in the gym locker room like before, and we were getting it after the dance and yeah, and like one of our friends was like, did you spill it yourself? And I think we were there like looking at it and then and then what happened?

And we kind of allude to this to the movies.

We noticed on the other side of the locker room there was another group of guys having the exact same conversation and they were all like looking at their friend's legs, poking at me like what is that?

Did you spill themselves?

And then like the two groups like locked eyes from across the room and it was like this, guys are so same moment where it was like, oh.

No, I think we have a situation on our.

And then there was a lot of like cross referencing who they had danced with and.

Wait, I got a preface for two people who haven't not seen Super Bad. There's there's a crucial scene where there's a dance sort of grindy dance moment in which a girl rubs her crouch on Jonah Hills. I think it's pronounced I forgot inside, unbeknown that Jonah Hill is thighs or his jeans are now maroon five.

Yes, they got period, their bloody period, it happened.

Oh wait, you're just getting that now.

I just remember I thought I couldn't remember if k on himself.

Or also on the table, the waking about it that.

Was in long shot almost.

You know.

My favorite thing about I visit a lot of local comedy houses in New York. My favorite thing is actually watching people bomb yeahfl no, no, no, only because like now I'm entering the stage of my life where I'm i have to give a lot more public addressing, and it's always how you handle yourself in that moment that separates the men from the boys. So a lot of times, like if you watch if you go to like I love going to the store in LA when it's the like the one am show, the very last show, and usually like the last three people's are always like the doorman, the bell guy like okay, I'll let you go up and do five minutes, like everyone's left the room.

I performed there at that time when I was like sixteen years old.

Because I feel in my mind that whenever I'm watching them, then I believe at one point either not Jerar Carmichael who's the guy that I liked Neighbors nigh Yeah, Jamar Nighbors was one of those guys and he's hilarious, Like he's one of Jerari Carmichael's dudes. But like it's always the last three people on the late the Graveyard shift that I love watching them the most to see how they adjust to it. Have you, when you were in sort of developing your skills or whatnot, have you ever had to resort to what they would call the what's the syndrome? Uh, like aristocrat syndrome or when you know that you've done a bad set and you're just performing for your buds, like, oah, I fucked up in always did everyone do the aristocrats? It was at another thing

where I.

Never did that specifically, but there was I mean, yeah, shit would go bad and there was and there would be times yeah where you would just kind of throw it all out and it was like a yeah, Like, I think managing the audience's discomfort is something that is a lesson that I learned at a young age, and that like, you can carry with you across many different avenues of life.

And I think that that's something that is very valuable and I did it, Yeah, I remember doing. But my friends could never come watch.

Me though, because I was a kid and they weren't allowed it to the club, so it was always strangers. But I had times when it's group tablesful adults, we get up and leave. It was terrible and they I remember performing at the Impro. I remember coming to La to audition for the Just for Last Festival when I was like fifteen and going to the improv and Jerry Seinfeld decided to drop in at the Just for Last stand up comedy showcase went on right before me.

Fucking annihilated when that happened.

When the big star comes in, it's like, hey, I want to practice that thirty.

Comedy show on a fucking showcase.

Did you ever get to tell Jerry what he did to you?

Yes? He could not have been more indifferent.

And then I went up after him, and I literally, like to this day, remember standing on the stage and it being so quiet. I could hear the electric hum of the and I'd been doing stand up for years at that point and I had never heard that sound. I remember like thinking to myself, like wow, like have the speaker's always been making that sound?

And I just haven't heard it or do These ones had like a particularly loud but I just remember hearing like I was like, oh that's a new one. Yeah. It was brutal.

So at the time I didn't get into the just for last festival, Jerry, Yes, could.

You explain how you got inside of the I guess the mafia of the what I call the app Town mafia. Yeah, I mean it was all I I. I was doing stand up and I got an agent through stand up and I was like sixteen or seventeen until high school was like gonna end, and I like was not gonna go to college.

So I was like, I should I need money, so I should start trying to audition for things.

And my plan, if you asked me that point where my plan was, I'll be like, oh, I'll moved to LA after high school and I'll try to do stand up And so.

You wanted to be a straight up stand up coming, Yeah, And then.

I thought maybe I'll get like on like a sitcom that was kind of like the only precedent of that in that time. That was like the thing that seemed the most achievable because it was like Seinfeld was on like everybody loves Raymon and Martin like that. Like at the time, it seemed like if you were a successful stand up, you got a sitcom. And I always liked movies more and so that was always something that I like wanted, but it wasn't as like it didn't seem it seemed like the types of movies I wanted to make at that time especially were like very small, independent movies, And at that time, Super Bad seemed like it would be like like Rushmore, you know what I mean, like not in its artfulness, but just in its scope, you know.

And I think that then I moved so I auditioned for Freaking Geeks. Was a second audition I got out sent out on and they auditioned kids out of Vancouver, like they did international.

Wait, you all were from Vancouver.

No, they did international.

So they auditioned in New York, in Chicago and Boston and Toronto and Vancouver, and I like, I went in for an audition one morning in Vancouver and and then I got it.

And then I moved to LA and uh.

I watched I watched that show in the first man, don't let people. I know people now like to revision it, like yo, man, freaking gigs with my ship man. You're like, oh, yeah, well but it was then why why don't watch it?

Well?

I watched it because during the time of us recording, Uh do you want more? Yeah, there was always a TV on the break.

Yeah. So that's how I.

Remember freaking geeks. That was my favorite. I thought, oh man, this is way better than my so called life years Damn.

I was just thinking about that as he was talking shit, I.

Get away like, were you excited of the the critical claim it got?

And did you?

I had no, Like I was like a seventeen year old pothead from Vancouver who, like I had no concept of any of that shit, Like I remember Pee being like you're in a business man, yet I just didn't.

I think I was. So I was.

I was really confident and I felt like everything like when someone's like yours everyone loves your show, like it has one hundred percent good reviews.

I was like, yeah, it's fucking.

Great, like like it wasn't like really, it was like, of course we're putting out great shit, like there's nothing like this on TV, like of course everyone like and if anything, that made it more frustrating that no one was watching it because like we knew it was good, and that's like I look back on and like, I didn't even think of the quality of the show when I went and did it, Like I it could have been the word Like I was just like a job, I'll take it. And then I remember getting to la and to shoot the pilot and it wasn't even until then that I got the full script, like the day before we started filming, and then I remember reading it and being like, oh, there's like jokes about shrooms in here and shit like that. And then we rehearsed for

one day and they were like, what would you say here? And then all of a sudden we were improvising and they were letting us add jokes about Hitler and all this stuff, and we were like, this is really different. And then when we started shooting it, we were like again Like the director was from the independent film world, Jake Kasden had just made Zero Effect, which was a movie I was a big fan of. So it was like, oh, yeah, we have like these writers and directors who were like doing the exact stuff that I liked. So when it turned out great, it was like again I was So I was really like spoiled at that time because I was just like, yeah, you make something.

So you together, like, oh, they creator the Larry Sanders Show has this new.

Knew that, but I didn't.

Again, I didn't realize, I think, how like I didn't realize a how just because you did something good before, it doesn't mean you'll keep doing things that everyone appreciates.

Like I was a fan of the Larry.

Sanders Show, a huge fan and grew up watching it, and but I didn't, like I think when I took the when I first got cast on the show, I had no idea jud it even I didn't know judge.

What was I know?

Judd worked on Larry Sanders Show. There was no IMDb at this time, Like there was no way to look up you were working with Evan. Yeah, like I had no idea the internet. Yeah, there was no like work Maybe there's IMDb, but I didn't know how to use it. Yeah, there was no like organized way of checking any of that shit.

This is like and did James Franklin didn't even hit the soap shit right?

Like no, it was like no one had done any and so yeah it was. But then it started Eric as we were shooting, and then they just were like, no one's watching this ship and it was on set Saturday night at eight or some shit like that against cops. I remember Judge like joking, like cops beats us. We're fucked and they cops beat us.

And he was, no, So what are you gunnry about Undeclared?

No?

Because again I was did you feel like, okay, well, we'll do a better version.

I was like, oh, this time, we'll do like a more commercial version and we kind of work out the kinks and like again it was like the exact same thing happened where it was like very critically acclaimed and then no one watched it.

But but that, but I was.

I was thrilled, honestly, like I was a writer and an actor on Undeclared. I was eighteen years old, Like it was, you know, it was like a very exciting thing for me to be doing.

So, uh, how hard is it living hands and mouth in that period? Because I are you, well.

Feel like has he never had a did you ever have a regular job or anything?

Well? I after Undeclared, I didn't work for like three or four years. Basicly, what did you do? I fucking spent very little.

Money, but you still never have to work at piece of head or be a server and I would help.

Judd was very nice and he would get these super high priced rewriting jobs and then he would give me a little to help him do it. So like I helped rewrite Bad Boys Too. As an example, Wait, time out. First of all, that its out, yes, so it's like a secret thing. We wrote that joke, and that was in the trailer where they're singing the song and they forget the word they like don't know the words like.

Oh yeah, yeah and yeah.

It was like, yeah, we that was one of the many things we did so maintenance work.

So what else did you do?

Little things here and there? Like uh, one of the Big Mama's House movies I helped on for a few days.

Wait, in this moment, I was I saying this because I know my whole family gonna get mad at me.

But in this moment, are you understanding your white funny man? Because you know that you are like you like this is a seriously it's a serious question. Like nobody else.

If you hear the struggles of other comedians and things and other colors, women, da da da dah, there is never a moment where they haven't had to like serve or do something that they didn't want to do.

But it seems like since you.

Were fourteen years old, Yeah, you was on it. You needed final draft, you had it, you needed the camera, you had it. You this is any moment did you realize this?

I was super, Yes, I was. I was very Yeah. I was never felt particularly downtrodden. I was very I felt lucky. I was very I always felt lucky and was very fortunate and like and and got that.

Yeah.

I mean there was a time when I was maybe gonna like but there was a moment I was like I might have to move back to Vancouver because I was just running out of money and couldn't afford to live in la anymore. And that's when I got hired on the Ali g Show. And that like continue that like yeah, it was like a great It was like a great job to have because like it was even it was like it sounded great in a room, Like it was like when we went on meetings and we were like, oh we got yeah, we got dominated for Emmys.

That was great.

Like it was something that like basically I haven't stopped working since that. It was like that was like the thing that kind of kept me going.

Because his brand of comedy sasa veryon cornet because he's such a rogue, yeah, kind of artsy comedian. How do you find his voice?

It was kind of Uh, it was hard, and I think he liked and I think it was good that we were so young and malleable at this time when we were working for him, Like we were like twenty two or something like that, and so like he could really I think without some of like the kid gloves you would use with older people, being.

Like, here's what you have to do, here's.

What we do.

Do exactly fucking this and nothing else. Forget everything, you know, just do this.

So like yeah, and and and he would literally lock us in a room and be like write two hundred interview questions for me to be interviewing like an environmentalist in a tree, like and like, don't come out of that room till you've written me two hundred questions.

Well he did.

Yeah, we came on for Bruno and then we went on the road with him. We went to spring Break, We did all the spring Break stuff with Bruno. It was insane. He almost got killed. What happens when you go to like Daytona beach yeah, it was crazy. What's funny is I had to kind of hide because I was not famous, but I was like one in every hundred.

People knew me from freaks and geeks, and so I was kind of had to like I was like relegated to the hotel room because like they were. He was just like the chance that zone sees you and puts two and two together is like two great. So, like we would travel from city to city and me and Evan would literally just sit in a hotel room and whatever city we were in and like and pray.

They come back alive.

Yeah, exactly.

They would come back and they would show us the footage of what they had done that day and we would all just laugh hysterically and be amazed that they hadn't gotten killed, and like it was.

It was fun. Yeah, it was great. Wow.

All right, So I have so many questions about your movies, but I'm afraid we'll just get stuck in one of them.

Yeah, but.

This is it, I mean yeah, one, yes, well, I mean there's.

So many, but I will say that for you know, foty year old Virgin was to me, like, how how much input are you given for scripts? Or how open is Judd to having you guys adjust the comedy the way that it looked. It almost seemed like, oh, this got to be on the spot, and he just say keep the cameras rolling.

A lot of it was improvised.

Yeah, I was, I would say, like, because super Bad had been written and no one would make it, and same with Pineapple Express, so you was still shopping it actively. And me and Evan and my especially because Evan was in college at the time and wasn't there all the time. Like I was always like, people want to see a movie where people talk like this, like more than anything.

That's what I had a strong feeling of, was like, they want a comedy where people where it's conversational and not so like plucky and jokey, and it just feels like people talking, they're swearing a lot, and and and like it's like taking like again because we grew up loving pulp fiction and clerks, and we were just like, if you can really gear that towards like comedy and like in a great way, and and since no one would make super Bad, jud Like and me and him together just thought that if we could make these the guys who work in the store kind of be almost like it's almost almost like a weird testing ground for like that type of conversational comedy, whereas Corel's character was this like sweet.

Kind of like island.

In the middle of the movie, we were like, if we can make these guys like, why don't we try this where we improvise and have it be very conversational and you guys can swear a lot and say all the sick shit you say to each other that makes each other laugh behind the scenes, but we never say it on camera because always like that's too much, that's too crazy, or people won't like that. But we were like, what if we do that on camera, you know? And that was really like the first time that any of us had done that, I think, like it was they had done Anchorman, where it was it was different though, because the movie is tonally not real, so like it's not they improvised a lot, but it wasn't like actual

conversations because it's like under this umbrella of like a false reality, you know. But this was the first time where it was literally like you can just say whatever you think you would say in this situation and there's no rating, like and we had never played in that environment.

Before, and it was really the first time where we were all like, oh, we can really let it rip.

And I remember the I had improvised that thing about going to Tijuana and like seeing a woman fucking a horse, and it's like it's like he comes into the or he comes it's like Corel comes into work and he explained making an egg salad sandwich and he's like, what did you do this weekend? I'm like, oh, I went to Tijuana. We went to see this woman horse and like it was not that cool, like it was kind of gross. Uh and and I remember like and it was like pretty it was like on the scale of like the types of things people were saying in movies.

At that time, on like the very far end of the spectrum, which is that's.

Why I asked you about the aristocrats exactly.

Yeah, and so that and we were just making each other laugh and I remember before the first screening we were like if people like, if that works, then like then we're fine. Like then all these instincts we have of like what people want might be right. And I remember like it was like like on like that moment was like a life changing moment in many ways, like sitting in the theater when that part came on for the first time and seeing the audience just like explode in laughter, and like you could see it was just like shocking to them, but all so funny and also felt kind of real. And I remember so many people come up to me after we came out and be like, you remind me so much of a guy I used to work with, or you remind me so much of

this weirdo who was in the back room at this place I would go to and like and and and you could see that we were kind of like tapping into this like relatable form of comedy that people, you know, at that time, it was like Dumb and Dumber, which I love, like it's one of my favorite movies ever, but it is not relatable, natural li stick conversational comedy.

You know.

It's huge, crazy gags and very specifically like written in staged bits right and very smart.

Can I just give you credit to for putting an actor in their lesser known name Kevin hart Hart, the dude Jared. I want to say his name right, Jerry. He's funny, the Indian guy who's just stopped everywhere.

Is he okay?

He is Okay. The other guy Okay, Jerry's fine.

One that was working in the store that was kept saying nasty ship.

Yes, about mixed up with the other guy. The other guy who still be in jail is in jail.

Okay, okay, yeah, making sure, making sure Ry's great.

Yeah, Kevin Hart was great. Attempted jail.

That happened because murder is bad, and I.

Do not like murder.

You know the conversations on the South when you have to explain that you're feeling is murderous.

Back, let me just clarify murders.

Back Sokay, succeed.

What I'm succeeding.

What I want to ask is, when you got the pitch for knocked Up? Yes, how is it pitched to you so that you wouldn't take it personally? Because the thing is because because the underhand tone of what knocked Up really is is we're gonna pair this hot girl.

With like you, I told you, it's something.

It's a joke. I was, but I appreciate you because you I was in on the joke, right, That's the thing.

How do you not do the person I think and what I always I would actually think that like one of the first other pieces of advice. A stand up comic Gamy, when I was like thirteen, was like, whatever, what's funny is this stand up comic looked exactly like Garth from Wayne's World. Like he was like a super skinny dude with long blonde hair and glasses. And he was like whatever. He's like, you have to let the audience know that you are self aware or they'll be uncomfortable.

And he's like, so if there's something about you that reads very obviously like, don't ignore that thing, Like let them know you are more aware of it than they could ever imagine. And he was like, He's like, my whole opening five minutes is about that I look like Garth. Like I fucking get it. And so I was always aware that I came across as like a schlubby, kind of stonery loser, and I was not. I wasn't in any way way self conscious about representing myself like that, because.

I knew I was not that you got super confidence. I was highly productive.

I could date women like that that were that were well out of my league on a physical level. I like, I had a job, I would game, I had a nice apartment, I had a nice car, like I was like at that point, like getting successful, you know, So it was not it was funny to me. And I remember jud we kept pitching these like crazy movies, mean, and we were trying to make Pineapple Express. We're like wanting a big action movie, and he was like that, Like He's like, you first just have to make something that like establishes who you are in the most like normal, relatable type of setting. And he just said it conversationally one day. It was literally like like like if you got a girl pregnant on the first date or something like,

that's the type of movie we should make. And it was one of those things where it was like, oh, we actually could. That's actually a really good idea.

What would that be like?

Like and him and his wife had got pregnant very early on in their relationship, and I think had to make some quick decisions as to whether or not they were going to kind of stay together and give it a go, you know, are just or what the just what the dynamics of the relationship were gonna be, you know what I mean, I think.

They weren't planning on having a kid at that time.

From my understanding, yes, exactly, Leslie's great, yeah, very funny, and so it was yeah, so it was personal. It was personal to me because and I think the way that we were able to represent my living situation especially was highly personal to me. And all the roommates and and all those guys were actually my friends, and I actually had lived with almost all of them at one point or another, and so like it did seem like I really yeah, yeah, I was totally happy with it and thought I would be funny with it, you know, And there was a thing where I was just I remember being like, oh, I can just make this guy like worse and worse and worse.

Like like just dumber and dumber and dumber.

And it's almost like the bower inappropriate, like the worst thing I could say on a date almost is like the funnier the whole movie becomes so yeah.

Wow, Okay, well I mean okay, well, yeah, I'll guess I'll ask. Okay, you don't have to, no, no, no, it's not that I'm just saying that, is there ever?

Fear?

Okay. I go to thirty Rock University and all that entails, you know. So I'm in in the iosorum. It's it's a university sess and now it's a big giant campus.

In cathedral to which entertainment is built.

So when you're how hard is it, in your opinion, how hard is it for women to get a seat at the table?

Insanely hard, way harder, And in.

Light of what's happening now and how comedy sort of has to re examine itself and what was cool in two thousand and six might get a raised eyebrow, Now, how has.

That eighteen we get a raised eyebrow out?

Yeah, so how does that affect not not how does it affect your world, but how does it affect the creative process, the fraternity process?

Yeah, where's the woman in the in the team?

We have women on our team?

But are you more or is it the climate right now in Hollywood? Are they super aware of it now where.

They say they are?

But I don't think a lot has changed. And if you look at the movies that come out, almost all of them are made by white dudes, like you know, like it's very like not that the actual like decision to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in a new social direction has not happened. I don't think I think people are talking about it. And it's like a topic of conversation that's like fun for people to say. And I think there's they're like inching towards that. But have I seen like, oh, all of a sudden, if you look at the slate of every major studio and they're all.

More equally distributed between men and women.

No, that's not the case at all women, And I think that that.

But I think for us, I think we're lucky with comedy for us because we never like pedaled in that.

I don't think like we never pedled in something that I would have considered to be like, you know, I think our comedy like I'm never complaining that, like about like people being PC or like we can't say the stuff that we want to be able to say. Like to me, that is like not an issue, and like you're either the type of person that like you want your you know, your work reflects who you are no matter what, and so if you have your sensibilities trying to be in the right place at any given moment, then your work will reflect that. And I've found myself not really having to defend that much of what I've done in the moment that it has come out. I acknowledge that again a week later you look back and

you're like, WHOA, that's age poorly. Sometimes you know, like yeah, I think there's jokes and sausage party that like twenty four hours after it came out, we're inappropriate. So maybe twenty four hours before it came out. But I think that, you know, we we try not to be offensive, We try not to exclude people in our work. We try to be inclusive as possible, and and and we ourselves are those types of people. So it isn't this like chore to weave that into our work.

And so lets just know that people now are hyper aware that that has to happen or that has to be a thing, whereas you know before you don't think like, okay, it might be inclusive. Am I in finding this group or that group?

I think that, I think anthing we're trying to be aware of for the last few years. I think Neighbors is the first movie that we really made really trying to go into it acknowledging that traditionally, especially that type of relationship that mean rose like a husband wife, really relationship in a movie is like always done a certain way, and we had to not do that and like it's always based on the fact that they hate each other and that they're not happy, and that there's all this conflict in their relationship and that she's fucking lame most of the time and that like he's like the carefree, fun one and she's yeah, and like so that was I think the and it was before all this, you know, all the current you know, kind of revelations that are happening.

But even then we were like, just how do we not do this in a lame way, you know? And how do we And also like, we want the actors in the movie to be proud and happy with their work. And I think as someone who is both an actor and a writer and a director and a producer, like I I understand what all those jobs entail, and I understand what it takes to make all the people doing those jobs feel like they're really doing something that they can be proud of and happy with. And that's something that was just started to become very important when I started to realize, like, oh, like if we cast Rose Burn in this role, we have to make it good and funny, and we have to make her excited to come into work every day, and we have to make

it that when she leaves work at the end of the day, she really felt like she was as funny as anyone else and given the opportunity to be as funny as anyone else, not like she was told, like you tell us to shut up as we say funny shit over here, you know what I mean?

How does that work? Okay? So how does that work? Like break it down like in third grade? Yeah, all right, So if you're heading a project, yeah, and you have to write for a specific character that you might not really have put a lot of effort or you know, like what's their background? And first of all, when you write for a character or write for a movie, does each character have to have their own bio in your mind?

Like to some degree, I think like backstory, Yeah, I think to some degree. I think it's it depends on how in like what's funny is like in this is the end? Like none of us really have any backstory, Like.

We're kind of just who you assume we are and you.

Slowly and the emotional conflicts are very of the moment. It's based on you know, you're seeing it play out in real time basically, so, but in general, yes, like some sense of backstory is is helpful and the more you can think of, the more it's probably good. But for I think for something like Neighbors, the conversations were literally like, how do we create a plot and a flow of events where that isn't contingent on these two characters having conflict with one another and instead is contingent on these two characters really being on the same team as one another, And right away that allowed both characters to be outrageous and silly and stupid, and neither one was trying to control the other. If anything, they were

always like encouraging the other to do stupidor and stupider shit kind of. And so it's more understanding the dynamics going in and what the result that will do. So it's like, if we go into the movie with this type of dynamic, the result will be this, And if we go and do with this type dnamic, the result will be this. And so that's something we were aware of, is like, if we want the result to be this, the dynamic has to be very specific going into it, you know, And that that's what we tried to do.

So kind of a three part question. Yeah, all right, now in your career. What is your preference. Would you rather lean towards directing a project or writing a project to give to someone else to direct, or what I would just say, blind job, as in doing a project that you neither had no directing or no hand in writing it.

I do that less and less, Like I don't act in a lot of other people's movies. I don't get asked a lot of other people's movies. But vehicles, Yeah, yes.

Exactly, But yeah, so it happens, and I do do it.

Sometimes I think what I'm what I really enjoy is writing something with the hopes that I will direct it and act in it, which has happened.

You want to wear all three hats?

Yeah? Is that a nightmare?

No, it's it's almost at a weird thing We've also found is, in some ways, the more control we have over something and the more jobs we are feeling, the less stressful it ultimately is because most of our stress comes from fear that other people are going to fuck our shit up, and so as long as we are controlling it, I'm not that worried. I'm more worried is the director going to ruin this thing?

So that leads to this leads to what have you learned? What have you what have you learned about? Actually I want to do too, what have you learned about? Green Hornet? And the Simpsons? Which I think for comedy writer is sort of like this this honor of Wow, I'm I'm doing this, I'm writing controlling a Simpsons episode. Yeah, So what lessons have you learned in those two instances that you would have changed now or made you wiser? Yeah?

I mean green Hornet was and I'm not a no no no iconic hid no. Yeah, it's not really Like I think a few things when I look back at that. One is I really overestimated, like our control at that point in our careers. Like I think that at that point we had kind of always been able to do whatever we wanted, you know, And I didn't predict how much a bigger budget, like, but all the movies we'd made at that point were like twenty thirty million dollars in Green Hornet was like one hundred and twenty million dollars, And I didn't quite predict what that hundred million dollars would do to the process and how before I would we literally wouldn't talk to the studio ever all of a sudden, we were having meetings where we go through

like every page of the script basically and how like destructive that was to the process and how Yeah, and like the biggest the biggest thing was was like we had an idea going into it that was slowly like completely you know, deconstructed and built into something else.

And it's one of those things that happened so slowly that.

Like so they took your product, yeah, and then said, well, we need to change this to make.

This the exactly what if we did this, Oh, we need a big actor for this role and went about this and we need this and like but.

Then with Gandri directing, Yeah, whom I thought.

Would be good, I think what he and I've seen him since then, Like I think what he didn't predict also was the scope of it and how And that's what because I think with artists and you probably can relate to this, Like I think the more you do your craft or whatever, the more you realize it's not only what you are doing, but it is how you were doing it. Like, if you're a painter, you not only want to choose what to paint, you want to choose what paint you use and you want to make your own canvas maybe, and you want to choose where you painted and all the.

Stuff, you know what I mean.

But with film it's sometimes that gets wrestled away from you, where it's like, here's the shot I want and here's how I think we should do it, and they'll be like, Nope, too expensive, here's how you're gonna do it, and and that, and that ruins the process, especially when you have a director like Gondry. And what I realized, I think what he realized is like his whole magic is not only in what he's doing, it's how he's doing it right.

It's the materials used, literally, and that did not always apply to this scope of filmmaking basically, and uh and it was just like uh, an inorganic combination of elements. And then there was a point I think where you're just kind of like, this seems like it's going poorly. I slept terribly throughout the whole thing.

You felt you felt even during the process, like this might not get out good for sure.

It was like because it was rocky for like the year leading up to it. And there was a point and this was.

Also something I would probably do differently now, Like we had just spent years working on it, and there's a moment where you're like do we stop or just keep going? Cause like after years it was it felt weird to just stop anywhere. It was just like, I think we just have to see this through, like and and that is something that I probably wouldn't do now. Honestly, I think after that experience, I would just be.

Like, let's just pull the plug.

And maybe we all wasted three years, but maybe we all learned a lot in that three years and have some good experiences. But I think like that's something at the time that I wasn't prepared to do, which was just say like, you know what, like, let's not fucking do this, you know.

So my parallel question to you is, Okay, now, as a person that's been doing what I've been doing at least what I'm known for twenty five plus years, you know, we kind of had this discussion like are we sabotaging ourselves but not like wanting to go to bigger houses. Yeah, Like we're now in the place where it's like, hey, you guys, do know that we could book a night at blah blah blah if you guys have the album in time whatever, And my immediate thing was fear, like, no, I don't want to play you know, seventeen thousand, da da da, because I feel like my zone has always been in smaller theaters.

Yeah, so for you.

Is is a nine figure budget sort of like a dragnet Horns. It's like, like, would you attempt to really go big or do you feel that you know when you do lower budget stuff?

Then I think now in order, we're writing a movie now that would be expensive, like a pretty expensive movie, not quite Green Heart.

But I mean like a popcorn film, like yes, but like a Summer of twenty twenty one.

Yeah, but like, but we're really trying to make it have all the stuff that we like out of movies, but we're trying to make like it's a more it's still like an R rated like action comedy basically, but we're the types of movies that are in theaters have changed, and I think that's something that we're also aware of, is we like a lot of what are It's interesting, like we work backwards to some degree from like audience reaction, and we go to movies and we sit in theaters and you know what makes people cheer, and what makes people laugh and what makes people shocked, and what makes people scared, and that changes over the course of years, you know, like the things. You know, there's some movies that have come out that ten years ago got a

certain reaction in theaters, and that same thing would not seem very exciting by today's standards, that shocking by today's standards. And so we are trying to evolve. We instinctually must evolve with the climate. And we like making movies for theaters, and we creatively think backwards a lot from what would make a theater full of people have like this experience, Like what would make a beater ful of people be on edge and then excited and then laughing and then sad and and and in or. But the theater part is the tricky part, because a lot of movies like Super Bad today, for example, probably wouldn't be in theaters.

It be hard to get it in theaters, you know what I mean. Knocked Up even would more likely be a Netflix movie today. It's just people talking in rooms, like there's no you know, there's no big action in it, there's no like it's literally people sitting and talking for two hours you know, like we go to.

Circus organically, it wouldn't happen. But I mean, you gotta admit that you're coming from the canon of the Uptown Mafia. Yeah, so even by six degrees of separation, like you personally would have to you would I would think you'd have to release eight bona fide below ten rotten to me before I'm like, nah, I ain't seen Seth Morgan.

You know, not all horror movies do well.

I mean, you know, like but even man, I'm I'm aware of it, it's still yeah, there's still some thing where it's like, oh, you're in it.

It might be good.

Yeah, you know, it's out there, but it's still like it's harder to get movies in theaters and it's harder to compete for the cultural attention like that, I think, and that to us is very important also is we like it when we make We've seen that in the past. We've made movies that like work their way into culture and they're referenced in rap songs and in other movies and on TV shows, and we like that, like we And that's not always a one to one thing with like success, it's just you know, It's something that only happens though, really with movies that are in theaters, like movies on Netflix, it's are just streaming movies. It's much harder for them to capture a piece of the culture.

And a movie like Mid Nineties, which was seen probably by one iota the amount of people that sees the average Netflix movie, capture the cultural attention in a way that very few Netflix movies do because it was in theaters and when people saw it, they turn their phone off for two hours and they sat in a dark room and they actually.

Watch it, and you don't do that with Netflix movies.

And I think that is going to become when I look at why I want movies and theaters.

That is it like, But that's not all the way true.

Those stuff I was gonna tell you, Like some certain movies command you to turn off the lights, watch watched, like when The Irishman was one of those.

This season, Dolomite was one of those seasons. It just depends.

I think.

First, some people they choose to watch Every Friend's just gonna have Nero Patino.

It's the same thing with dol But there are stranger things.

And there's a million people watching the Irishman like as they're on Twitter. Yes, I mean, and if it's in the theater, you don't even have to option, like you have to watch it.

And I think I saw it in the theater me too. I didn't want to watch me too Netflix, And I love it.

And I think when you put a movie in the theater, you're telling culturally, you were saying, like, this is worth you putting your phone in your pocket for two hours, like, and you're asking people to do that, and that asks that it is a big ask. And I think that to that end, that's why we're writing a very expensive big fund.

Us.

We understand what we're asking is not a light ask. We're asking you to give up your timon courtesy, and in order to do that, we have to repay you with something that is worthy of it.

So can I ask apatop mafia question?

And for that reason, I'm gonna go back to something that I wanted to ask you guys when y'all were having the back and forth. Do y'all ever consider because as a woman of color, being a fan of what you guys do, I love it wouldn't change it. Blah blah blah.

However, time to change it, and not for nothing.

I would be curious to see how a woman of color would be written to some of these situations, right, because when you look at the majority of the movies that you guys do, like you said, I know, you introduced the rose Burn situation, but not really so have y'all started considering maybe, yes, maybe the next thing.

Maybe I don't know yet, but you're working on.

Something, yes, very much. I mean, it is. It is a prevalent topic of conversation, but not on purpose.

I don't want y'all to do it just because oh my god, everybody's demanding that we have a woman and then we have to have a woman of color, but just because you see that, hey wait a minute, that would be funny to get that perspective in this storyline, and like.

Yeah, I mean it's something that Yeah, I mean, the more perspectives and the more different people you have working on your material, the better it all is.

Yeah. I mean, we produce the show Black Monday with don Cheatle and.

Regina and.

It's great and The Preacher Yeah, and we've just seen and and it is and Preacher exactly. We've seen.

It's very rewarding and and and and it and people get great. You know, it's the more representation the better. I would never argue otherwise, but I want to see you like I got.

I love the daun Chet in the Regina Hall, but I was like, man, I want to see.

That'd be great.

I'm in Okay, So in the hindsight, the like I was paying attention to it, but I don't recall. I remember the email fallouts with Sony. The interview would be interview, Yeah did was it worth it?

Uh?

Yeah? Because it was crazy and like and was.

Not to us like other people, I mean talking about sexism. Like the only real person to be horribly damaged by it was Amy Pascal, her.

Boss Michael Linton. He wasn't damaged, but but she was terribly damaged.

Wait just collect me if I'm wrong. The the fallout, the fallout with the damn with the interview was if you guys released this, we'll hack into your emails.

And then they eventually they had her. They had already hacked into Sony and they eventually threatened to like bomb movie theaters that played the movie basically, and that's why they pulled.

Okay, so it was released stream or was it Google Plays I've seen it. I just forgot where Google released it.

And then Netflix released it all within like, uh, Google released it. Actually the date was supposed to come out in theaters, and the Netflix released did two weeks later.

Ah okay, And.

Again, was it was it worth it? It was?

I mean it was like it was a really interesting exercise, Like I don't the result of which is still fascinating, And I don't even when you say is it worth it? I don't even I'm not even sure anyone knows what the fuck actually happened. Like there was a big article in the Hollywood Reporter the other day that was like what really happened in the sonya ha?

Can you read the article? And you're just like, there's no, I don't know what happened. I don't know what happened. People don't. They're not sure North Korea did it. They don't. Like no, people people think they did.

So like it's hard to it's hard to retrospectively gain a lot of insight from something where you honestly aren't even sure what.

The fuck happened.

Like as a movie, Honestly, to me, the most the biggest bummer is that the movie pretty shitty reviews and that doesn't happen to us that often, and that that fed me out, Like honestly, yeah, it was like for us, like pretty bad. And so that to me was the thing that if I look back and could change something, I'd be like, Oh, I wish the second act had like a better set piece in it, and I wish like we rounded out the third act more emotionally. But I but like because that was the stuff that was in my control, you know what I mean, Like the actual product, the film was the thing we were in control of. And what I'm yeah, what I don't love is that it just wasn't received as well as movies.

This just hit me, and I know we're gonna wind up pretty soon, but uh, it just hit me that you're one of the cameos in one of Yauk's last pieces. Yes, uh, make some No, I'm about to call it fight for You right too.

Yeah, make video.

Yeah, there was an incident version that was called fight for You right reviews. So how did that? How was that picture come together?

Just?

Oh man, are you guys aware at the time what his condition was? And this was sort of like this swan song or we kind.

Of got that sense as we were shooting it, like I knew he had been sick, but I there was kind of like the public word on this on the street was that he was getting better, you know.

And then he just called me.

One day, I got a call from adamill Coke call yeah, and it was just like the greatest fucking phone call you ever got.

A huge BC Boys fan my whole life.

Like I'd met him once or twice before at like south By Southwest, I think, and yeah, and he was just like, we're making a music video and I want you to be Mike d.

And that was fucking great.

And then we shot that video for three days, which is crazy for a music video, and and every famous person ever was in and I think it was like halfway through day two where I was like, oh, this is like a kind of like.

A big last Tursh Swan song.

Yeah, And and then it got kind of sad and bittersweet, but was also fun like when when I look back and think of was like he was just telling like it was literally like we were all his like g I Joe toys and he was just playing with us and it was like for your birthday, here's all your favorite comedians and they'll do whatever the fuck you tell them to do for three days straight on this New York City backlot and like that's literally like he would just be laughing, Daddy, kick the store in except throw this beard him, you guys, dance on the cough car and like and he would just be like laughing his ass off as we were just like what like there was no questions there was. It was never like why would I do that? He was just like sure, yeah, whatever,

whatever the fuck you want, We're it, and like we and it started to kind of imitate the video itself because we were there all the time, Me and Danny and Elijah who were the Beastie Boys, and then other cameos would come in for like a couple hours, and we were like in this mindset.

It was like crazy.

We were just like so geared to just do whatever we were told to do. With Eddie, like if they were just like body slam Laura Dirt, I was like all right, was like no, Like I was just like in this like state of like I'll just do whatever the fuck this guy tells me. That's what we're here for. And you could see people would come in and be like this is crazy, Like what are you guys doing in here? This is like you've you've gone nuts and that really like we were just spraying beer, a fake beer on everyone's faces and like throwing like we Yeah, it was.

It was a maddening Danny McBride must be like he writes to correct.

Yeah, he writes Eastbounding down and the Righteous Gemstone right, So yeah, he.

Must be like awesome to work.

In my mind, everybody who was in this is the end in a way to do their own writing, But who is like awesome to write with? It blows your mind and you just like the fuck you come up with that ship.

They're all great in their own ways. Like yeah, Like Danny Jonah is truly the one. Like on set is like it's pretty remarkable to watch, like he's he he's like he gets like very locked in and is like it's like a pretty miraculous thing. From time to time, Danny is very loose and had and biting and like he's the comedian that kind of the other comedians are a little afraid to improvise with hurts, yeah, because I mean, but he's very sweet and nice.

But it was like I saw him once and I did not say because I just felt like.

He don't know, you know, he's very sweet and such a nice dude and like not and what it is one of those funny things where like he created those characters as a way to make fun of the guys he didn't like growing up.

Basically that is who he is and his biggest fan base is probably which is a bummer videos.

How did Kanye contact you to do bund We.

Just did it on our own and then he did really yes, and then he did ask so he just released it.

We released it.

He did it. No, we just did it. He released his video and literally within.

An hour of seeing it, I was like, we're recreating it, and we had ours up like twenty four hours later.

Like it was you know, it was I've never seen Kanye's version.

Oh that's funny.

You just saw ours fun fat I never seen Kanye.

It's okay, I never saw so much worse.

You wait, what, what's what's the Patino film? Okay, I'm reding it.

What's the film? O?

Not Donnie Frosco. You were the end of Carlido's way. When you think they're going to get away with it, It's like, hey, no, you go.

You yeah, you ca he stabbed you.

No, I'm sorry. I've seen the college drap out ones, but I haven't seen post that.

No, but he did ask us to come do it at his wedding. Wow, Franco.

Yeah, I don't understand.

He called us and was like, will you come do that at my wedding? And did you know it? Well?

Know?

Like it was one of those things were like throughout the conversation, I like, you thought willed him to realize how uncomfortable it would be, which he slowly.

Did he and I was just like, so we're just and he's just like he's like, as I say this, I realized how comfortable. He's like, it would be funny for ten seconds.

But he's like, I've asked you to fly to verside for like literally ten seconds and ship He's like, we shouldn't do it.

But so I meant, I mean you you lived, You lived a charmed sort of listy life. I want to know, did a project ever get away from you that you had your eyes on that you wish you I wish we did, like you had a chance to no write or direct blah blah blah.

But there are.

Things like no I mean, yeah, did Lynn Manuel come up to Hamilton get away from your kid?

No, there are things that like that we that came across our desk that then became very successful. But I don't think when I look like, oh, like, should we have really like spent like two years making like you know, like Hobbs and Shaw, I.

Don't know, like maybe it would have been fun.

Like yeah, I mean I don't know if it was like outwardly offered, but there was a point where it's like, come in, you want to meet on the Hobbs and char movies like Deadpool Baby years ago, very long time. But like I think that it's not It just wasn't our thing, you know what I mean, Like we weren't like, uh, the idea like plugging in. I think that's what green Hornet scared us off of more than anything, was like plugging into.

This like saying yes to everything, yeah exactly, and.

Plugging into like an IP that is like very established, yeah, already established, and having to like work within that so like like and working with like a big company is like just scary, like working with like a Marvel or you know, like and not to say we wouldn't do it.

It's just it's just scary, you know.

And and I think and making like a friend, yeah, like making like a Hobs and Shot type movie where it's just like, this movie's gonna get made no matter what.

We're just the people like, you know, serving you the dish.

Well, the silver lining of Greenhorn is that you got your health in check.

Yes, and it started working out. Yeah I know that.

Well yeah, No, it was a lot of good and we learned like so much like we that movie was made in a way movies aren't made anymore. Like everything it was practical effects, it was visual effects. There was there was huge stunt teams. There was like literally the stunt team that did Indianda Jones did the movie. Like we got to learn from these like amazing people, and and Gondry himself was someone who was amazing to learn from.

And even though the result was debatable, like I think very few experiences made us understand the production process and filmmaking in general, uh more than that movie because it was as logistically complicated a movie as as exists in the world. And we had like a front row seat to every step of the process. So that was really interesting.

Yeah. Wow, which it made a better movie.

Can I show a stoner question real quick?

Because I remember famously listening to you on Stern one day and he was asking you about working out and working out why you were smoking, and.

You were like, yeah, I'll tell you a couple of totes.

Do you do that?

Yeah, I've done it in this.

Little Jill Queen when I do everything.

I want you to give advice to young stoners because I think you have to graduate to that level. Yeah, And I wanted to know when you got to the point where you knew that you could do everything Stone That's that's like next level.

It takes a while. Yeah, tell a baby, baby, Yeah, exactly, Like the thing most people.

I'm always telling people to smoke a little bit of wheat, Like to take one hit of wheat. That's what Like, I just I was just with David Chay on his Netflix show, and like we went around smoked weed all day, and I just the whole time was like one little tiny hit and that'll get you going for you'll be fine and like like or set a timer, take one hit and then see you feel in twenty minutes and then maybe have another hit. But like most people just make way too much weed and who don't smoke a lot of weed, and weat is super strong and one hit is enough literally and.

Get any I'm also, yeah, did you do you smoke the team?

I'm yeah, well I prefer uh was it? I'm like so new. I'm literally like seven months into.

This, so we've been trying for thirty years.

Yeah.

But but the thing is, when I do it, it always hits me at the most inopportune moment, like I'll do it all right. One time I did it at night, Yeah, and it felt a little weird, like, oh god, let me just sit down and relax. I fell asleep rightep and woke up in the morning. It's like, oh damn, I didn't get high. That was a waste. And then twenty minutes and then twenty minutes into my day right when I got on the drum set of fell and you all.

From the night before.

That's weird.

Yeah, that is weird.

I Well, see, I do edibles.

I don't.

I don't smoke.

Are on edible.

I do edibles very sparingly because they're wildly unpredicted. Yeah like that, like they're uh, they're hard to it's hard to get time them. Yeah, it's hard to get the dose is right, it's hard to time them. Sometimes it depends on what. Sometimes they take an hour to kick in, two hours to kick in, depends what. It takes five hours.

You need to take note of the stone is around you. Do you ever see Steve eating his weed?

If you eat your weed, there's none left to smoke.

Sorry forgive me.

Again, my my My final question is uh, Oftentimes, like right now I'm watching the Morning Show, which is notably everyone. I've knew them. I knew them from the funny world, the comedy world. But yeah, they're doing drama. Like, would you consider because you did Steve Jobs correct the movie?

No, I did Steve Jobs.

Technically, would you want to further explore into the world of drama?

Yeah?

And what role are you? What is your like your fantasy thing that you haven't done yet that you really want to do?

We're writing that.

I mean, that's what's nice about being able to write your own movies, is like, I've no one to blame but myself for if if my career seems limited in scope as an actor, like yeah, I mean, what uh the thing we're working on now I'm obsessed with, Like Buster Keaton and Jackie Chan and so like, I've always wanted to make like a highly physical, like action movie, like our action comedy, like something that is almost entirely predicated on action and not a lot of talking at all.

And that has just always been something that I always enjoy shooting that type of stuff, and so that something that we want to.

Do, and that's what we're working on right now. Yeah, kind of like a really violent mister Bean.

All right, Well, you know, Seth, we really thank you. Damn, we don't even get to your your hip hop. It's we'll just assume that you like hip hop. I love it anyway. No, we really want to thank you for coming.

And you want to appreciate to love that.

Yes on behalf of Sugar Steve and Unpaid Bill and Boss Bill and lie In. This is Quest Love. You've been listening to Quest Love Supreme. Thank you very much, Seth. We will see you on the next go round. Happy New Year, Happy New Year, A little bit of week, just a little For more podcasts from my iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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